The Queen's Gift a Shadowed AU
by VR Trakowski
Summary: A lycantant without a pack is alone-until there is one worth obeying. A darkish AU.
1. Chapter 1

**The usual disclaimers apply.**

 **This is a weird little idea that flatly refused to grow into anything more. It's partly predicated on the question of what happens if a Recurrence is found while the original is still alive, though of course that could go a number of ways.**

* * *

Chapter Management

They call him _Death_ , and they are right to do so.

For all his flaws, Caine Wise is what his Splicer made him. A hunter, a soldier, a killer. He fears no one, loves no one; he does as he's told, and brings death on silent wings to his targets. He is the Legion's legendary tracker, and his prey never escapes.

He rises from obscurity to become an asset. Nominally a Skyjacker, he spends half his time on solo strike missions, and the rest on the edge of his unit. His commander is stern but fair, and Caine knows his life is at its peak. He is useful, he has as much respect as a misbred Splice can hope for; he is content.

Until his instincts escape his control.

Waking with the taste of blood in his mouth is familiar; what's new is the blank where memory should be. So is the taste of shame. Seeing Stinger suffer for him feels so wrong that Caine wishes he could forget that too, but by the scars on his back he is condemned to remember.

He survives prison by violence and his own stiff pride. When the guards come to pull him from the filth and the cold, Caine isn't sure it's not some fresh torment, but when he stands clean and straight and full-bellied before the Entitled, he starts to believe things have changed.

The Abrasax lord smells like his guards, cold-blooded, and in a few languid sentences he lays out Caine's task. Find the child; kill her; bring proof of death.

The fact that his target is immature does not matter. Caine has killed children before; not often, but it's happened. The 'verse is a cold, hard place. People die.

He is a Splice. This is what he does.

* * *

She's small, lithe, frightened and fierce, halfway between child and adult. He has his orders - but Caine recognizes her face. And dreams of rewards beyond his pardon.

Instead of death, he offers life, snatching her up. Admires her valiancy as she snarls through her fear. Does his poor best to soothe.

He goes to the old, cold queen whose face she bears, and lays the child before her like a prize. His skin shivers when the distant eyes so far above him kindle.

The queen's gift to him is to make of him a gift, and name him the girl's protector. Caine embraces it. A lycantant without a pack is alone - until there is one worth obeying.

The girl learns fast and well. There is no more home for her, just the harsh school of the queen's will. The girl is clever; she learns to bend around it, to keep her own counsel, to absorb all that the queen would teach her and make it her own. The girl trusts no one.

Except Caine.

When the queen's eldest heir decides he does not wish to share, and sends assassins to restore the status quo, it is Caine who shields the princess, who deals death in turn, a red wind of ferocity that ends with the floor sticky and smeared and the breath rasping in his lungs. The echoing tap of her small shoes across the tiles is loud in the shocked silence; then her hand is on his bent head, and it is all he ever wants.

When the princess retaliates, he is at the forefront of the assault, and when the lord is brought in chains before her, Caine asks if he may kill.

The princess smiles the queen's smile, and grants permission.

The blood is hot and salt on his tongue, and so satisfying, but better still is her approval.

The princess learns her lessons thoroughly. Before a decade has passed she has taken the throne from the queen; the other heirs bend their necks to her, wisely giving way. She rules with the same absolute, icy power, all the more chilling in one so young.

And always by her side, at her feet, guarding her back, is Caine. _The Beast of the Abrasax,_ they call him, or _the Queen's Hand_. She sends him out against her enemies, and none prevail against him. Always, he returns to her side triumphant.

None know the secrets they have exchanged - only once, when he was a new gift. He is the only one who remembers her childhood name, _Jupiter_ , and he keeps it safe for her. And she has promised that he will always belong to her.

He sleeps at her feet and wakes to her fingers in his hair, and never has he felt more content.


	2. Chapter 2

The planet is beautiful, and empty now, its cities razed and its ecology cleaned and repaired. It is a marvel of lush growths and gorgeous vistas, resplendent with the cries and calls of animal life once pushed aside to make way for humanity.

They walk along the shore of a vast inland sea, just the two of them - there are guards, of course, but they hang back out of sight and sound. The Queen walks a long time, gaze searching the horizon, before she speaks.

"I'll never reseed this world. It will remain an - Eden." She smiles a little at the word, unfamiliar to Caine, then glances up at him.

"I begged her not to do it." The words are a whisper, and only hearing as sharp as his could have picked them out of the constant wind. "To let this one world lie, safe and unplucked, but she refused me."

Another long silence falls as they walk, Caine putting out a respectful hand from time to time to steady her when the ground grows rougher. Finally she turns down a spit of rock pointing into the water, and halts.

Her gaze up at him is unaccustomedly soft, almost vulnerable, as it has not been for years. "It was then that I decided to kill her, you know," she says, and her tone verges on pleading. "I couldn't save my world, but I could avenge it."

Caine bows his head, apprehensive. Absolution is not his to give, but the Queen seems to be seeking it. "What else could you do, Majesty?"

She sighs, raising a hand to push at the tangled mass of her hair, teased by the wind. "I wonder sometimes...if I had been stronger, could I have saved them?"

"You were powerless, Majesty. Never weak." Hadn't it been her strength that had enthralled him from the very beginning, her refusal to to give in to the forces that fought around her? A lycantant could accept no less in a master.

She bites her lip, and then nods, believing his words. In a rare moment of gentleness, she slips her hand into his, and he wraps his fingers around it, half in awe, half to warm her chilled skin. She tugs, and they turn back from the water to walk on.

"I'm keeping the nectar," the Queen says abruptly, when the low sun is bathing the sky in color. "No one will ever use it but me."

Her mouth tightens, the familiar cold steel. "It's what they would want."

Caine nods. The output of a premium planet such as Earth would last one person thousands of years, if not longer; it pleases him greatly to know that she will continue on, strengthened by the heritage of her people.

The Queen turns inland a bit, just enough to reach the tough grasses that grow beyond the lakeshore, and halts. She reaches up to him, and Caine drops to his knees, smoothly and without thought. The corner of her mouth edges up, and she strokes a finger along his temple. "You're going silver here," she says, then surprises him by bending down to press her lips to his.

Caine holds perfectly still, caught in a deeper awe. He knows the Queen trusts him, but he is no pleasure-Splice to attract the eye. And yet, can she not do as she pleases, with him as with all others?

The caress is warm and chaste, and he feels her mouth curve up before brushing words across his. "No one but _us_ ," she says, low and firm. "I will share it with you."

A thrill shoots through him, half at her words and half at her touch. He dares to speak, every syllable a velvet caress. "Me, your Majesty?"

A firmer press, and then she straightens, eyes wide and dark and soft again. "You. I will not do without you, Caine."

 _Ah, yes, yes…_ To guard her forever, watch over her through all time...he can ask no more of life. Slowly, reverently, he bends to lay his palms on the ground and touch her feet with the lips she's just honored.

Her hand strokes through his hair, and her low laugh dances on the wind.

Caine closes his eyes in bliss.

End.


End file.
